A Florida widow and her family have filed a lawsuit against a cruise line for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body and putting it in a drinks cooler after he died on board a ship.
According to a federal complaint filed in Florida, Robert Jones’ body was kept in a walk-in cooler generally used for drinks for nearly a week instead of a properly refrigerated mortuary as his wife was assured.
Mr. Jones died of a heart attack on the Celebrity Equinox on August 15, last year.
According to the lawsuit, his body was discovered in “advanced stages of decomposition” in a cooler in a bag on a palette.
According to the report, it caused the body to become bloated and green, and the family was unable to hold an open-coffin funeral, “which was a long-standing family custom.”
Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the situation and “respect for the family.”
The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, all year, is flagged out of Malta and can carry about 3,000 people.
According to the lawsuit, when Mr. Jones died, crew members gave his wife Marilyn two options.
They allegedly told her that his body might be removed at the next port of call, Puerto Rico, or kept in a mortuary until the ship returned to Fort Lauderdale in six days.
Most large cruise ships contain a mortuary in case of passenger death.
According to the claim, the crew told Ms Jones that if she picked Puerto Rico, she would have to leave with her husband’s body and organise transportation back to Florida.
She was also advised that inland authorities might want a post-mortem, which would delay their return even more.
Ms Jones chose the mortuary, but according to the lawsuit, that is not where the body was kept.
When the ship docked in Florida, a funeral home staffer and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy discovered the mortuary was reportedly closed.
According to the claim, they discovered Mr Jones’ body in a walk-in drinks cooler in a bag on a palette.
According to the report, the cooler was far warmer than the near-freezing temperatures required to properly preserve a body, and the remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”
According to the lawsuit, Celebrity’s actions “stripped” Mr Jones of his dignity and caused “extreme trauma” to his family.
Ms Jones, her two daughters, and her three grandchildren are suing for $1 million in damages.
